Overlord's Orders Commentary

[Hickory]

OOC

Oh dear Overlord Soren, end the round!

[close]

[Søren]

OOC: Sage is eliminated for not having any IC content. Just kidding, I will end this madness tonight when I catch up on it all.

[LT Sandpaw]

OOC: Luckily half the other contestants didn't post. 

[Delthion]

OOC: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! I MISSED THE SIGN-UPS!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

[Mhera]

OOC: So far over 3700 words (not counting Soren's post or OOC stuff) of defenses has been posted since the game started.

[Søren]

Yeah, this round is done. My judgement will be delivered later tonight. No more responses can be taken.
@Del
I would let you in, but it wouldn't be fair to whoever is going lose this round.

[James Gryphon]

Jasper actually proposed this a while back; at the time, I didn't do anything with it because I was afraid of how close the game was to being an RP. But, since the Arena OOC seemed to work well, and since I'm conceited and hoping somebody will comment on my posts, here's an OO OOC thread.

So, what do y'all think of this game so far? Any favorite quotes (for the sake of fairness, that aren't yours)?

[Delthion]

I WANT TO SIGN-UP BUT IT'S TOO LATE!!! *Sobs.*

[James Gryphon]

Well, you know what was said:

Where fate is sealed on battle's field,
And many low are laid,
The wisest mind says stay behind,
And let the fools get slayed!

This is honestly the single most stacked round, talent-wise, I think I've ever seen. It could get really bloody here.

[Skyblade]

I like the idea for this thread

Well, I'm excited about this round. So many people! More exhilaration. And also, this part of your last post was utterly hilarious:

"I can attest about the Opposite Day nonsense. Here's how it all started. Sage and Plugg had been arguing very loudly, and yelling insults at each other. When Sage screeched, "NOOO, I'M AWESOME, AND YOU ARE STUUUUPIIIID, YOU STUPID STUPIDITY STUPIDITY STUPID STUPIDY-HEAD STUP MAN", so loud that it burst one of Jukka's eardrums (the poor girl has a condition, and her ears are especially sensitive), well, Sam had had enough. He screamed, "STOP SCREAMING!!!"

You all are such skilled competitors, even the newer ones. I'm afraid I am in for a tough battle.

[Mhera]

Trying to incriminate you guys is like chasing a greased pig.

[Skyblade]

Same for you

[James Gryphon]

I think two of the biggest things to playing OO (besides writing skill) are confidence in yourself, and the ability to figure out what other people are saying when it gets complicated.

When I go into a round, I have the feeling that I can take on anything that anyone can throw at me. Even a large stream of attacks is just another puzzle to unravel, not necessarily a threat (although I grant that it can get tricky defending against a bunch of people when you have to stay within the word limit). I know what I can do, and I play to win. You need to believe in your writing.

The hardest part of OO is figuring out what's going on at any given time, since the story is often not clearly linear. Now, stories that start at the beginning and work their way to the end are easy to figure out, and it isn't any harder to start out at the end, and work your way back in time either (adding new causes of previously described events). Often, though, people will jump around from point to point, and/or don't leave a clear reference to what time something happened in the plot, and that gets confusing.

I've found that it can help my defending to take apart other people's posts, and try to 'rewrite' them by copying and pasting their stories in a text file and rearranging the pieces until they make sense. Once I know approximately the order that things happened, the rest is reasonably easy. If the timeline isn't clear no matter what you do, then you can fill in the blanks to make it so with your own post, or else just ignore everything that isn't relevant to your defense and build the story around the stuff that happened to you.

One thing that's worth keeping in perspective, though, is that the story should be fun. Many of my posts (especially the good ones) try to make the other players look a little juvenile or unreasonable, because characters acting silly is funny . Music and Daniel were both great at this, and that's what makes many of their posts in OO2-OO4 so memorable to this day. I don't favor adding wacky elements to the story as much as I usually do having the characters themselves act strangely.

Another thing I like is to try to build distinct 'personalities' for people, even carrying them from one round to another if it's practicable. Daniel consistently portrayed himself as a bit of a wimp, constantly pushed around by the aggressive people around him. Music's character was a girly-girl. Daniel started describing Tagg as a bit of a forceful galoot (it was in OO4, I think, where he described him as a "no great reader"), and I carried this characterization on into the rounds I played with Tagg, doing things like having him steal Sam's book, the same as he had previously done with Music's diary three years before. One of the things I loved about Tiria's posts in OOX was when she made a post describing me as getting offended when she slapped me on the back, and saying that "he's like that". Currently, I'm trying to portray Sky as very childish and ditzy this round. A characterization may or may not stick, but if you can make it work, it can add a lot of depth and continuity to the game.

[Mhera]

Hmm. Very interesting, thanks James!

Really though, my big problem right now (and this isn't just in OO, it's IRL too so I really should know better) is somehow missing stuff. Like the entirety of one of Sage's posts and the first bit of Jukka's on the third page (we were on the fourth page by the time I noticed).

I do get what you mean about going into every post determined to find a way out of whatever predicament you're in. There's always a solution, you just have to find it.

I thought this was pretty funny, though...

I'm sorry, alright? I never meant to poison Jukka, I just... well, it was Halloween the day before, and the spirit of Death Day just kinda took ahold.

[Søren]

My judgment has been delivered.